


once you're gone you can't come back (out of the blue, into the black)

by antisepticdork



Series: so it seems i'm someone i've never met [2]
Category: JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Demon Sex, Explicit Language, F/M, M/M, Magic, Minor Violence, Non-Human Genitalia, Past Abuse, Sexual Content, doppelgangers, whoops i did it again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-22 06:20:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11961513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antisepticdork/pseuds/antisepticdork
Summary: Despite looking tan from afar, Jack noted that up close, Piano Man had an odd grayish cast to his skin that he could’ve maybe written off to the lighting and the color of his suit… except that wasn’t the only thing that changed about his appearance. His eyes lost their rich chocolate hue, flickering a deep crimson that reminded Jack of the innards of slaughtered animals, and that lovely mental comparison should’ve been enough to send Jack sprinting for the hills.Instead he was drawn in, mesmerized. Jack felt his tensed muscles relax, allowing this total stranger to support more of his weight. And it was only when Jack was no longer afraid of falling that he realized why he trusted Piano Man’s steady gaze, even though there was something so obviously wrong about what he was at his core.He looked like Mark.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am fully aware that Mark and Jack are in happy relationships with Amy and Signe, and I wish them nothing but the best. This is just a goof.
> 
> Hi again. This is the companion piece I hinted at in response to all the (lovely, amazing, wonderful) comments on my first fic in this fandom, [i've been damned so many times i've lost count](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11661291/chapters/26239830), which was the story of Mark and Anti. This is Dark and Jack's story, and while I don't believe it's necessary to read _damned_ first, I would be a happy clam if you did. These two fics _do_ take place in the same universe, and for any continuity sticklers out there, the first chapter of this fic happens _before_ the events in _damned_. I'm planning on writing a second chapter that incorporates some elements from _damned_ (i.e., that text convo between Mark and Jack), but I've also got school and original writing and real life, so I make no promises on when you guys will see that. Thank you for all the love on _damned_ , and I hope you enjoy what I've done here. Any mistakes are my own, and the rating is subject to change to M or E depending on how the second chapter goes. ;)
> 
> The title is from "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse, which I think is an awesome Darkiplier song. I made a Darkiplier playlist on my Tumblr, which you can find [here](http://samnanther.tumblr.com/post/164274223607/got-you-in-a-stranglehold-baby-youre-gone-i).

It started because Jack lived in a small town.

Small towns are all the same, regardless of specifics. In Seán “Jack” McLoughlin’s case, the small town in question was Athlone, located along the River Shannon in Middle-of-Nowhere, Ireland. It was a nice place, with plenty of shops along the main drag and several pubs with varying levels of resident alcoholics and sticky floors from which to choose.

Jack had lived in Athlone since he graduated college and moved out of his parents’ house. He’d gotten a job doing sound design for Warfstache Games (working with Mark Fischbach, which came with its own set of boner-related issues) and secured a lease on a cozy one-bedroom apartment that overlooked the river. Since he’d lived in the same apartment for the better part of six years, he knew all of his neighbors by name, and chatted with them down by the post boxes frequently.

It was Mrs. McCready who told Jack about the Piano Man.

Mrs. McCready was a tough old bird who could often be found doing push-ups and crunches near the main door to the apartment complex. She wore sweatbands on her forehead and wrists, and a velveteen tracksuits in eye-searing primary colors which clung in all the wrong places. She was actually a pretty nice lady despite poor fashion choices and her mountain of hair, which she kept piled on top of her head like a nest of white snakes.

One day Jack was on his way in from the shops, grocery bag in hand, and stopped to grab his mail. He was shaking the rain off his coat when Mrs. McCready called out from her usual spot: “Jack, you _have_ to hear about the man I saw at the pub last night!”

Jack turned to her, sliding his bills and a magazine in alongside his shopping. He pushed his dyed green bangs back under the band of his beanie with a damp hand (stupid Felix and his stupid hair color-related dares). “What man is that, Mrs. M? Do I know him?”

“Oh, I don’t think so!” Mrs. McCready said. She was doing a Downward Dog pose and looking at Jack from between her legs— _that_ was nightmare fuel. “He was at The Headless Pig, and you know that ancient Steinway in the corner?” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper: “He was _playing_ it! In front of everyone!”

Jack raised an eyebrow. The grand piano at The Headless Pig was rarely touched, despite being the nicest thing in the pub by a mile. “Oh, yeah? Was he any good?”

“Good? He was _phenomenal_!” Mrs. McCready kicked out one leg to emphasize her point, and Jack hoped like hell that today wasn’t the day her tracksuit bottoms decided to give out. “I asked Ol’ John at the bar what tune the man was playin’, but he hadn’t the foggiest. Then I thought of you for two reasons—you do all that sound-related shite on the computer, and the Piano Man was _incredibly_ handsome.”

Jack felt his pale cheeks flush pink, and he rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly. He’d never regretted mentioning in passing to a group of his busybody neighbors that he was single and bisexual more than he did in this moment. “Mrs. M, come on! Don’t tell me you tried to set me up with a stranger!”

She hopped out of Downward Dog with the agility of someone half her age and winked at Jack. “I _might_ have told him you’d be down at The Headless Pig tonight, waiting to hear him play. He seemed positively _enchanted_ by the prospect.”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Jack said, face burning. “You are, without a doubt, the worst neighbor in the whole fucking world.”

“Yes, yes, I’m terrible,” Mrs. McCready agreed, shooing him toward the elevator. “Now put on something that makes that butt of yours look good and thank me later.”

 

~***~

 

“I’m not doing this,” Jack muttered to himself once he was up in his apartment, yanking off his beanie and kicking his boots into the corner. He dumped his shopping and keys on a side table and collapsed on the couch with a sigh. “This is ridiculous, and stupid, and I’ll get shot down by some hot guy who plays piano like Mozart all because Mrs. McCready’s a crazy old bat! I’m _not_ doing this!”

Bright blue eyes stared at the ceiling for a moment before Jack shifted around, pulling his phone out of his back pocket to text Felix. **You got a min to talk?**

Jack’s phone rang in his hand, Felix Kjellberg’s Swedish accent—not softened by living in England—coming over the line: “I’m taking a shit, what’s up?”

“For fuck’s sake, Fe, do you _have_ to be on the toilet every time you call me?” Jack asked.

Felix made a noise of consideration (or perhaps constipation). “Would you rather I didn’t tell you and you were startled by a surprise flush?” Flush he did, and a moment later the echoing in the background of the call lessened as Felix exited the bathroom. “Besides, we have to keep our relationship fresh _somehow_ , Jackaboy.”

“Not sure ‘fresh’ is the word I’d use there, buddy,” Jack said. “Now can I tell you why I wanted to fuckin’ talk?”

“Yeah, yeah—unless you’re breaking up with me,” Felix teased.

“You’re insufferable. I don’t know how Marzia puts up with you.”

“She only loves me for my body. What’s going on?”

Jack described the situation with Mrs. McCready and the piano-player over at The Headless Pig.

Felix didn’t sound impressed. “So what’s the problem? Dress up nice and go get your man! He could be the next Billy Joel, and this time next year you could be living in a mansion on Long Island, swaddled in furs like a babe.”

Jack pulled a face. “That scenario has, like, zero appeal. Fur is gross. And one of the _many_ problems with this is that I know Mrs. M means well, but I sincerely doubt some ‘ _incredibly_ handsome’—” here he made air quotes even though no one was around to see them “—guy who’s that talented is going to be interested in a nerd who does sound design for video games.”

Felix’s joking tone vanished, replaced by the sincerity that only his family and closest friends got to hear. “Jack, shut up. You’re _awesome_. And just because nobody sat at your table for that weird speed dating thing—”

Jack groaned like a dying man. “The single most embarrassing night of my life, you mean.”

“—doesn’t mean you aren’t cute, or that you’re not worthy of talking to this Piano Man for five minutes,” Felix finished, as if Jack hadn’t interrupted him. “Besides, if you _don’t_ go, aren’t your neighbors gonna make your life hell?”

Jack paused to consider all the ways Mrs. McCready and her cohorts could try to set him up with people _besides_ Piano Man. “It pains me to admit, Fe, but I think you’re right. I’ve got to go down there tonight, don’t I?”

“Yep. Let me know how it goes, and stay safe!”

“Gee, thanks mom.”

 

~***~

 

The Headless Pig occupied the ground floor of the oldest building in Athlone, a rectangular stone-and-mortar monstrosity smushed between the greengrocer and an optometrist’s shop. Every parking space outside the pub was occupied, and Jack he didn’t own a car… even though not being able to find parking would’ve been a valid excuse for not meeting the Piano Man.

It was Friday night at about half-seven, so the crowd in the pub consisted mostly of people who’d gotten off work and college kids. Pint glasses slid up and down the polished mahogany bar with ease, and the pub’s namesake—a taxidermy potbellied pig with no head—stood in the rafters, overseeing the flow of alcohol and Shepard’s pie. The overall feel of the place could be summed up in three words: crowded, sweaty, and noisy.

Jack ordered a beer—American, much to the disapproval of the bartender—and scanned the room, blue eyes finally spotting the Steinway in the back corner when a cluster of bodies shuffled to a booth. The body of the grand piano was black as tar and shiny despite its age, but its bench was empty, the fallboard closed over the keys.

Jack felt something deflate in his chest, the bitter taste of disappointment coloring his next sip of beer.

Wait, he hadn’t actually _wanted_ to see this mysterious Piano Man play… had he?

Ol’ John—owner of the establishment and a member of Mrs. McCready’s phone tree—came out of the back, a clean tray of glasses in his hands. He spoke in an Irish brogue not dissimilar to Jack’s own, but stereotypically thicker. “Jack! Good to see you again, lad. I take it you ran into Mrs. McCready?”

Jack raised his own glass in greeting, rotating back and forth a little on the barstool. “I did. She told me about some guy you had in here playin’ piano, said he was really good.”

“Are you kidding? He’s _excellent_ , and good for business, too. Been coming in here every night the past week, and my staff’s getting their best tips in ages.” Ol’ John leaned in, dropping his voice. “Rumor has it he’s staying at that chain hotel they built down the way— _and_ the law might be after him.”

Jack fought the urge to roll his eyes. Whenever the local gossips couldn’t pry a life’s story out of a stranger, they had a tendency to make up stories of their own to fill in the gaps. Everyone who passed through Athlone and didn’t engage in the proper amount of socialization was suddenly either a wanted criminal or some kind of celebrity in disguise. “And what’re the charges this time, John? Another bank robber?”

Ol’ John’s grizzled face took on a dour cast. “Look, Jackaboy, you might be the town skeptic, but there’s reason to believe in this one. If you’d seen him, you’d know what I mean.” He shook his head. “The man’s a great piano player, but by Jesus if there wasn’t something… _off_ about him.”

Jack was about to ask John what he meant by that, but was interrupted by the bell above the door to The Headless Pig clanging as someone entered. The din of half-drunk conversation dulled to a murmur, almost everyone in the place moving to take in the newcomer. Someone in the far right corner was so startled by this turn of events that they spilled their whiskey all over their shoes.

A man stood just inside the pub, backlit by the orange-yellow glow of the streetlights coming through the windows. He was maybe a couple of inches taller than Jack and broader in the shoulders, defined muscles hidden underneath a charcoal suit that looked expensive even to Jack’s untrained eye. A cream-colored shirt, blood-red tie, and leather wing-tips completed the outfit. His hair was black as coal and parted to keep his bangs off his face, which featured a chiseled, stubble-covered jaw and angular brown eyes.

None of that in itself was strange. What _was_ odd was the way the man had instantly captured the attention of every person in the pub, simply by walking in the door. Jack didn’t blame them (he had to check to make sure he wasn’t drooling), but a funny thing happened when he focused hard on the man in the doorway: he seemed to slide out of focus, his outline shivering in reds and blues. It reminded Jack of the first time he’d worn 3D glasses, right down to the headache at his temples and the ringing in his ears.

“Don’t stop on my account,” the man said to the room at large, the barest hint of amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Please, continue getting shitfaced.”

Ol’ John leaned over the bar again to whisper in Jack’s ear: “That’s the piano guy!”

Jack had forgotten Ol’ John existed at that point, and jumped so hard he nearly fell off his barstool. Luckily he wasn’t holding his beer, or he would’ve ended up like that poor sap with the whiskey—

Wait… _nearly_ fell off his barstool?

Jack blinked, shocked he wasn’t feeling the pain of hitting The Headless Pig’s solid oak floor. While his ass was technically still on the seat, Piano Man had somehow crossed the room in the split second it took Jack to lose his balance. He was pressed up tight against Jack’s side, a large hand splayed on Jack’s back to keep him from falling over. His other hand rested lightly on Jack’s knee, presumably to prevent his leg from flailing upward and knocking over every drink on the bar.

Despite looking tan from afar, Jack noted that up close, Piano Man had an odd grayish cast to his skin that he could’ve maybe written off to the lighting and the color of his suit… except that wasn’t the only thing that changed about his appearance. His eyes lost their rich chocolate hue, flickering a deep crimson that reminded Jack of the innards of slaughtered animals, and _that_ lovely mental comparison should’ve been enough to send Jack sprinting for the hills.

Instead he was drawn in, mesmerized. Jack felt his tensed muscles relax, allowing this total stranger to support more of his weight. And it was only when Jack was no longer afraid of falling that he realized _why_ he trusted Piano Man’s steady gaze, even though there was something so obviously wrong about what he was at his core.

He looked like Mark.

The open-mouthed staring Jack was doing appeared to be contagious, since Piano Man was gaping at Jack like a dead fish. Jack had no idea what was so shocking about his own appearance, other than his eyebrows, which were bushy as all hell and could probably kill someone. Piano Man seemed to be particular fascinated with Jack’s eyes, because he was staring into their blue depths like he was trying to burn holes into Jack’s brain, or like he expected something to happen.

Ol’ John cleared his throat. “Should I get you two a room?”

Jack had no idea why he could see how fucking strange Piano Man was and Ol’ John couldn’t, but the warning fingers digging into the side of Jack’s kneecap suggested that now wasn’t the time to split hairs.

Jack sat up and threw his arms around Piano Man in a hug. “ _Mark_!” he exclaimed, putting emphasis on the name so Piano Man would get the hint. In Jack’s mind, the easiest way to avert suspicion was to pretend like they knew one another. “What the fuck are you doin’ here, man?”

To his credit, Piano Man played along beautifully. He chuckled and returned the embrace, smoothing a hand down Jack’s back with enough firm pressure to make Jack shiver involuntarily. “I wanted to surprise you at home, but people around here are pretty tight-lipped. Everybody knew who you were, but nobody mentioned where you lived.”

Jack pulled away enough to look at Ol’ John. “Ol’ John, this is my friend from America, Mark Fischbach. Mark, this is Ol’ John—The Headless Pig is his pub.”

“Good to meet you, sir,” Piano Man said, his voice deep and smooth as silk, a perfect imitation of the real Mark. His arm curved around Jack’s back like a snake, hand resting just above his hip. “Quite the busy place you’ve got.”

“Mhmm.” Ol’ John crossed his arms. “If you were lookin’ for Jackaboy’s place last night, Mark, you should’ve come an’ asked me. I would’ve happily escorted you over there.”

Jack winced internally—Ol’ John wasn’t buying it. They needed another lie, and quick. “I’m sure he was just tryin’ to be subtle. Mark’s more than just my _friend_ from America, if you catch my meaning, and you know how fast gossip spreads around here. I’m always complainin’ to him about it.”

Piano Man smiled and nodded in agreement; Jack swore he saw a flash of fangs. “I’m pretty sure the woman who approached me last night while I was playing your Steinway was trying to set me up with Jack.” He made a delighted sound, leaning in to nuzzle at the side of Jack’s face. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was taken.”

Ol’ John’s posture relaxed, a result of the lies and physical displays of affection. “Well, then, I can certainly understand your reasoning. I know I hate it when my personal business winds up all over this damn town.”

Jack resisted the urge to point out that Ol’ John was one of the biggest busybodies in Athlone. He also did his best to keep still as Piano Man’s lips grazed his cheek, finding himself torn between leaning into the touch (Jack was pretty lonely, okay?) and getting the fuck away from the preternatural creature/possible sexual predator wearing his friend’s face as quickly as possible.

“So, Mark,” Ol’ John continued, “I couldn’t help but notice how talented you are at the keys. Would you mind playin’ for a while? It kept the habitual drinkers a bit calmer last night, and I’d owe you one.”

Despite his desire to take off, Jack didn’t see a way out of this that wouldn’t renew Ol’ John suspicions. Evidently Piano Man didn’t either, because he said, “I’d be happy to.” He grabbed Jack’s beer off the bar, and he used the arm he had around Jack’s back to navigate them both over to the piano. “Let’s go, _darling_.”

Jack managed to hold his tongue until they were relatively isolated behind the hulking body of the Steinway. When they sat down on the bench he shrugged off Piano Man’s arm and slid as far away as he could, saying in an indignant whisper, “Okay, who the _fuck_ are you? And don’t call me darlin’.”

Piano Man had the nerve to grin as he raised the fallboard, and yep, Jack had been right about those fangs. They extended down from his gums and hooked over his incisors, not unlike a spider’s. “From the sounds of things, I’m Mark Fischbach from America.” Setting his fingers on the piano’s keys, he added as an afterthought, “You’re a much better liar than I expected.”

Jack snorted. “I guarantee whatever Mrs. McCready said about me wasn’t true. And don’t try to change the subject—I know you were as surprised by me as I was to see you wearin’ Mark’s face.” He leaned in, forced himself to gaze into Piano Man’s unsettling eyes. “Let’s start with something simple, yeah? What’s your name?”

Piano Man hummed contemplatively, hands tapping out the jaunty walk-along of Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London”. “You can call me Dark.”

“Oh, Christ.” Jack’s voice rose in pitch. “You’re some kind of vampire _and_ you’re crazy? I really got the fucking booby prize, didn’t I?”

“I’m not a vampire.” Dark sounded like he was talking to a particularly dense child. “And keep your voice down, or everyone here is going to think you’re the crazy one.”

“Okay, _Dark_ ,” Jack said, putting strain on the name to make sure its owner knew how ridiculous it sounded. “If I’m _not_ crazy, then why the hell do you look exactly like my friend Mark?”

Brown eyes glanced at Jack, gleaming blood-red under the yellowed pub lights. “Tell me, Jack, how much do you know about your country’s folklore?”

“Enough to know that you’re a monster,” Jack snapped, frustrated but not surprised when Dark didn’t flinch. Jack wasn’t unfamiliar with magic—it was very real, and his ma and his sisters possessed enough magical blood to heat up lukewarm coffee and keep pests away. Come to think of it, the McLoughlin family tendency toward magic was probably why Jack could see through whatever glamour Dark cast to pass as human.

Whatever Dark was, he was old, and his power radiated off of him in waves. This was most likely not the first time he’d been called a monster, and he had probably endured far worse.

Jack guzzled down half his beer as the tune Dark played changed, picking up the melody of “Psycho Killer” by The Talking Heads. “Well, you’re certainly not a leprechaun. You could be a _fear dearg*_ , or maybe a _gean-cánach**_ , but if that were the case I’d expect you to be stealin’ babies or seducing women, in that order.”

“I _can_ do either of those things, but that’s not what I prefer.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dark agreed, fangs flashing. “I prefer to spend my time searching for the components necessary to break the _dúbailte_ curse.” His ghoulish coloring should’ve made him less striking, but somehow he still looked handsome as he grimaced. “Of course, sometimes that searching attracts the wrong kind of attention. Which is why I’m here.”

 _Dúbailte_ was Irish for _double_ , and Jack felt smacking himself in the forehead when he figured it out. “You’re a fetch.” His eyes went wide. “You’re _Mark’s_ fetch. But he’s half-German, so I guess doppelgänger would be better terminology. Does he know?”

“I sincerely doubt it. No magic runs in his family.” At Jack’s questioning look, Dark explained: “He and I have a… connection, of sorts. It’s faint, but occasionally I get flickers of emotion.” A mirthless smile. “He really loves his dog.”

Jack drank the rest of his beer, used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. “I must have a fetch too, or you wouldn’t have looked like you swallowed a lemon when you saw me.”

Dark nodded, fingers sliding seamlessly into Billy Joel’s “Big Shot”. “You do. His name is Anti, and he’s in Los Angeles.” His eyes went distant. “We worked together for a long time.”

“Los Angeles?” Jack repeated, surprised. “Mark moved to LA a little while ago.”

“Coincidence, I’m sure.” Dark shrugged a dismissive shoulder. “Anti wouldn’t be easy to find, anyway. We… split up, after our last job went awry.”

Jack found himself scooting closer on the bench, confident now that although Dark was dangerous, he wasn’t currently a threat. “What kind of job was that?” Jack made an _ah-ha_ noise. “Oh wait, let me guess—you’re a hitman! Less _John Wick_ and more _Collateral_ , though.”

Dark raised his eyebrows. “I remind you of Tom Cruise?”

“Sure!” Jack grinned. “You’re short _and_ crazy.”

“Mhmm. Not much for cults, though.” Dark made a noise that suggested he had no idea why he was putting up with Jack’s bullshit. “And I’d like to think I have better taste in suits.”

All of a sudden the doppelgänger’s head tilted to one side, elegant hands stilling. The abrupt stop to the music was enough to shut up the pub’s patrons momentarily; in the relative quiet, Jack heard the tinkle of broken glass hitting the floor and an odd hissing sound, like the hissing from a bottle of soda when you twisted off the cap.

Dark tackled Jack to the floor as the smoke grenades ignited, filling the entirety of the pub with caustic gray clouds. The door crashed open, and amid the chaos of drunken locals shouting and tripping over each other to get away from the source of the smoke, several intimidating figures in black body armor pushed into the room. Jack had worked on enough video games to know that the AR-15s they held were very real, and the sight of the guns made his stomach turn over.

He didn’t fight it when Dark manhandled him up off the hardwood and guided them both behind a stack of decorative whiskey barrels. That didn’t mean he was going to go quietly, though. Fighting back a coughing fit that would’ve rivaled a chain-smoker, he hissed in Dark’s ear, “What the _fuck_ is happening?”

“They’re here for me,” Dark answered, expression grim. Reaching under his suit jacket, he pulled a matte black Beretta handgun out of an underarm holster. “I should’ve known would happen. I got too comfortable.”

Jack clamped a hand on Dark’s arm, stalling the movement of the gun. He fought to keep his voice near a whisper: “What are you gonna do, shoot your way out of here? That’s crazy!”

Dark’s eyes cut toward him, flashing like rubies. “Really? And what would _you_ suggest?”

Jack glanced around, peripherally aware that the men with the ARs were shouting in broken English, some kind of Eastern European accent scrambling their words. A large fire extinguisher was stored against a nearby wall, and Jack released his hold on Dark’s sleeve to crawl over to it, lifting the extinguisher off its rack as quietly as possible. It was heavier than expected—he’d never used one before—but the idea that formed in his mind still seemed doable.

“If I throw this, can you shoot it while it’s in the air?” Jack asked.

He fought hard not to shudder when Dark’s piercing gaze turned appraising, raking up and down Jack’s body with newfound interest. “Of course I can. Do it.”

“Okay. Here goes nothin’.” With a grunt, Jack heaved the fire extinguisher in the direction of the bar, figuring the most people would’ve cleared out of that area by now. It was coincidentally where the majority of the men in body armor were clustered together.

Dark waited only a millisecond before firing the Beretta, and the bullet hit the extinguisher dead-on as it fell behind the bar. The extinguisher exploded with an almighty _BOOM_ , shattering the bottles of alcohol on the tall shelves behind the bar and sending wood splinters and mirrored shards flying in every direction.

The blast was so loud that Jack couldn’t hear a fucking thing in the aftermath, but he ignored his sudden deafness in favor of grabbing Dark’s sleeve again, yanking him toward The Headless Pig’s back exit. They burst through the door and out into the chill of the night, the wail of police sirens the first thing Jack was aware of as his hearing started to return.

They ran until the next street over before Jack had to stop, gasping for breath and leaning against the stone wall of a closed jewelry shop. When Dark stopped too, Jack punched him in the shoulder with as much force as he could muster. “You… are a fucking menace.”

Dark smiled wryly. “Considering the shape that pub’s in, I can’t deny that.” He holstered the Beretta and put his hands in his pockets, looking like they’d just left some kind of fancy dinner instead of a life-or-death situation. “So, where’s your apartment?”

Jack stared at him, dumbstruck. “Where’s my… what?” He let out a little hysterical giggle. “Why the hell would you think I’d want you in my apartment?”

“Because if you haven’t run away from me yet, you’re not going to,” Dark said, a know-it-all edge to the words that made Jack grind his teeth. “Those goons scattered as soon as that extinguisher exploded, which means they’re still looking for me. I would wager that you’re smart enough to realize that once the police start questioning people, they’re going to be made aware that you told the bartender I was your ‘friend’—” here he used air quotes, which somehow made Jack more annoyed “—from America. Everybody in this town knows you, so it’s only a matter of time before that information makes its way back to the guys that tried to take me out.”

“And they’ll come after me regardless of whether or not you’re actually with me,” Jack said, his heartbeat finally slowing to the point where he didn’t think the organ was about to burst through his sternum. “Which means we’ve probably only got a few hours before they come knocking on my door. God fucking _dammit_ , Dark.”

Dark jolted like he’d been stuck with a livewire. “God, you sound just like him.”

That gave Jack pause. “Like who? My… double? Anti?”

“Yes.” Dark hesitated, voice going softer, gentling in pitch. He offered Jack his arm. “I could tell you about him, if you’d like.”

Logically, bringing Dark back to his apartment made some degree of sense. Jack wouldn’t be able to stay there since everybody and their brother would either want to interrogate him or kill him, so what was the harm? It would give them an opportunity to clean up, and Jack could book an abrupt vacation to visit Felix and Marzia in Brighton, providing he grabbed his passport. He could hunker down in England for a week, and by the time he came back all of this would be faded like a bad dream.

Jack sighed the sigh of the long-suffering and slid his hand into the crook of Dark’s offered elbow. They started walking, with Jack steering them in the direction of the river and deliberately not looking at whatever shit-eating expression he knew Dark would be wearing. “Don’t get any ideas. This doesn’t mean anything.”

Because Jack wasn’t looking at Dark, he didn’t see the satisfied smile playing on his face, like a cat who just caught a plump canary. “Of course not, darling. Not a thing.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I promise I won't ramble for long, but I just wanted to say THANK YOU for all the wonderful comments you left on the first chapter of this fic! Your kind, lovely words are much appreciated! :D You probably noticed the rating change, and that I added some new tags, so I wanted to let you know that **the past abuse that I tagged for is mentioned in passing. The abuser is not Dark and doesn't have a name at this time.** If that's something that might trigger you anyway, please read with caution. If you're new, I would recommend reading the first fic in this series, _i've been damned so many times i've lost count_ , before reading the second chapter of this one, otherwise you might miss some plot points! This was my second time writing smut and I apologize in advance if it's terrible, because the second time was just as nerve-wracking as the first. Any mistakes are my own, and a big shout-out to [chelsea_chee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelsea_chee/pseuds/chelsea_chee) and [GalaxyGhosty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyGhosty/pseuds/GalaxyGhosty) for cheering me on when I posted little snippets of this chapter on Tumblr! You guys are awesome! <3 Enjoy, and please let me know what you thought! (Also there's probably going to be more of this series, but shhh, you didn't hear that from me.)

“Jack, you know I love you, bro,” Felix said, rolling up in his car to pick Jack and Dark up at Brighton City Airport. His blond hair was mussed from sleep and he wore pajama pants with little pugs printed on the legs. “But please explain to me why I’m getting you from the airport at three in the morning, and why the guy carrying your bags looks like he sells door-to-door coffins for a living.”

“I wouldn’t go making accusations like that,” Dark said casually, tossing Jack’s luggage in Felix’s trunk like he was lifting bags of feathers and not most of Jack’s possessions. “ _You_ look like you belong in an ad for a male enhancement product.”

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “Felix, this is Dark. Dark, this is my friend Felix. He’s being kind enough to let us stay at his place, so be nice.”

Felix snorted. “Dude, your name is _Dark_? Jack, where did you find this guy, fucking Hot Topic?”

Dark looked Felix up and down—not in the predatory, vaguely sexual way he’d done to Jack when shit hit the fan at The Headless Pig—and sneered. “At least I don’t smell like cheap perfume and dog piss.”

Felix rounded on Dark and Jack forced his way between them, arms spread to keep them at a distance from each other. “Okay, that’s enough! Dark, stop being an ass, and Fe, please stop provoking him.” He widened his eyes and blinked at Felix, willing whatever McLoughlin magic he possessed to help him diffuse the situation. “Can we please just go to your house?”

Felix relented with a sigh, opening the driver’s door and sliding behind the wheel. When Dark went to get into the passenger’s seat, Felix shook his head and pointed behind him. “Oh no, Gerard Way—you’re sitting in the back. I don’t trust you not to shank me while I’m driving.”

“Technically it would be easier to shank you from behind,” Dark pointed out, but he slunk into the back with the grace of a cougar, crossing one leg over the other and not bothering to buckle his seatbelt. “And really, it’s Jack you should be worried about. He can be quite devious.”

“Now I _know_ you’re crazy,” Felix said with a braying laugh. “Jack wouldn’t hurt a fly.” They pulled away from the terminal, heading for the mostly-dark shapes of Brighton Beach. “I’d like to know how you guys managed to get a flight out of Ireland at assfuck o’clock in the morning, though.”

Jack wasn’t about to explain how Dark had cornered a clocked-out pilot heading for his hotel, staring at him with blackened eyes and murmuring in a dead language until the man’s face went blank and he led them to his employer’s private jet. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders and lied his ass off: “Mr. Warfstache owed me a favor. I kinda saved a project last-minute, and he let me borrow his jet.”

Felix didn’t look like he bought it, but a glance in the rearview mirror stopped him from calling Jack on his shit. “Okay, but why _now_? Did Cobra Starship back there turn you into a fugitive?”

“It’s… complicated,” Jack hedged. He looked in the rearview, too, glancing away when Dark’s crimson gaze met his. “Dark pissed some people off back home, so I thought it’d be best if we made ourselves scarce for a while.”

“Whoa, hold on,” Felix said. “Are you guys, like, a _thing_? What about that Mark guy, from your work? I thought you had the hots for him!”

“ _Felix_!” Jack exclaimed, clenching his teeth. He felt Dark’s eyes drilling into the back of his head—great, so now the local eldritch abomination knew Jack had a crush on his doppelgänger. How _fun_. “God, I fuckin’ hate you.”

Dark made a chiding sound. “Now, now, Jack, you said it yourself—that’s no way to speak to our host.” The amount of sarcasm in his voice was enough to keep a cynical television writer’s room going for a year, and it only made Jack grind his molars harder. They pulled up in front of Felix’s townhome, and Dark popped open his door. “Is this your place? How _wonderful_.”

Jack got out of the car, slamming his door with a little too much force and resisting the sudden urge to crush Dark’s fingers with the trunk lid when he went to get the luggage. He jogged up the steps and felt his irritation melt away when Felix’s girlfriend, Marzia, opened the front door. She wore yellow pajamas dotted with tiny blue hearts and her long brown hair hung in girlish pigtails to her shoulders.

Her smile was radiant. “Seán! It’s so nice to see you!”

Marzia was one of few people outside of Jack’s family who called him by his given name, and when she pulled him into a hug he felt the tension drain out of his shoulders. “Hey, Marzia. Thanks for puttin’ us up.”

“Of course! Come on in—you can have the guest room.” She looked past Jack, eyebrows rising when she saw Dark. In a stage whisper, she asked, “Is that your boyfriend?”

“My what now? Christ, why does everybody think we’re dating?” Jack deliberately did not look in Dark’s direction, but he could _feel_ his presence in the doorway behind him. He cleared his throat to keep his voice from cracking. “Anyway, uh, the guest room?”

Marzia giggled and led them down the hall, past a well-decorated sitting room and refurbished kitchen. The guest room was normally Felix’s office, and Marzia had clearly moved some things around so the queen-sized bed was accessible. Felix’s computer desk was pushed into a corner and space was cleared for suitcases; there was an open door leading into a bathroom, and another door that presumably led to a closet. The curtains were pulled over the picture window in deference to the time, and the lamp on the nightstand cast a warm glow over the neutral color scheme of the furniture and bedding.

Jack noticed something that made his cheeks flush. “There’s, uh… only one bed?”

“One’s not good enough for you, princess?” Felix teased, dragging in Jack’s luggage and dumping it in the preordained. “Should I get the peas out of the freezer so we can see if the mattress is soft enough?”

“It’s lovely,” Dark interjected. His expression was genuinely grateful as he looked at Marzia. “Thank you, dear. I’m sorry for the imposition.”

Marzia waved him off with a delicately-manicured hand. “Don’t worry about it.” She took Felix’s arm. “Let us know if you need anything.”

“ _After_ the sun’s up,” Felix clarified.

They left, shutting the door behind them with a soft _click_.

There was a moment in which Jack and Dark simply stared at each other, and then Jack said, “I’ve got rules.”

Dark raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“For bed-sharin’, I mean.” Jack put his back to Dark and unzipped his suitcase, hunting for pajamas. “You stay on your side, I stay on mine. No touching. And if you snore, you’re sleeping out on the couch.”

“What if _you_ snore?” Dark asked, and _holy fuck_ he was right behind Jack. His breath tickled the fine hairs on the back of Jack’s neck. “Do I get to pick your punishment?”

Jack swallowed hard, refusing to acknowledge the undertone to Dark’s words or the way they rumbled out of the doppelgänger’s chest like a purr. “No worries. I don’t snore.”

“Who told you that?” Dark wondered, and when he inhaled again Jack could feel his chest brush against his back. “Was it Mark?”

Jack turned to face Dark again and forced himself not to flinch at the lack of distance between them. He was close enough to Dark to watch his outline waver and double in reds and blues, to see the deepest shades of burgundy in his eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Mark and I have never even met in person, let alone done anything else.”

“But you want to.” Dark said it as a statement, not a question.

“What I want doesn’t matter,” Jack said. He brought up a hand to rub his chest, trying to dispel the ache there. “Far as I know, Mark’s straight as an arrow. And even if he wasn’t, he could have anybody he wanted.” _There’s no reason he’d pick me, I’m nothing special_ went unsaid. Looking at Dark’s face—which was so different and yet so similar to Mark’s—Jack scoffed a little. “I’m sure you know what that’s like.”

Dark laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “Only if you count compelling people into doing my bidding. I don’t know about you, but that’s not how I like to get a date.” He loosened his tie and tossed it on a nearby chair, the suit jacket following a few seconds later. He sat down on the edge of the bed, mattress springs creaking a little. “People see what I want them to see. If they knew what I was, we’d be looking at another Salem Witch Trial.”

It was Jack’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You started the first one?”

“I’ve been alive for a long time. My appearance changes each time I enter this world, to match that of my doppelgänger.” The skin on Dark’s face rippled enough for Jack to catch a glimpse of several sets of eyes. “Let’s just say I didn’t always have the best control over it.”

Jack sat down next to Dark, _Adventure Time_ pajamas clutched in one hand. There was an aura of sadness that hung around Dark underneath all the bravado, and Jack always wanted to help when people around him were sad. “So, you and Anti… you guys can only come here from your world when there’s a compatible human for you to copy, right?” At Dark’s questioning look, Jack added, “My family’s magical and I grew up poor. I read a _lot_ of books.”

“You’re right,” Dark said. He ran his fingers through his black hair, and somehow messy bangs only made him more attractive. Motherfucker. “It’s a bit more complex, but that’s the short version.”

“Which means that technically you’re a demon, but less fire-and-brimstone and more Lovecraft.”

“Is there a point to this tangent, or are you just driving me to drink?”

“If you touch Felix’s whiskey collection he’ll skin you. And yes, I have a point.”

“I’m breathless with anticipation.”

“I’m trying to figure out what can hurt you, asshole,” Jack said, but there was no real annoyance behind it; he’d grown used to Dark’s tendency to be a shit alarmingly quickly. “You weren’t afraid of bullets back at the pub, so I’m inclined to think spell or substance-based weapons instead of mortal ones.”

Dark’s mouth quirked. “Are you planning on killing me in my sleep? You might be more like Anti than I originally thought.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Yes, because the thought of murder turns me on to no end.” He got up and headed for the bathroom, intent on taking a shower to wash off the grime from the plane. He paused, resting a hand against the doorframe and adding quietly, “If you don’t wanna tell me, have it your way. But since you waltzed into my life and fucked it up, I think the least you can do is throw me a bone.”

Dark was silent for so long Jack thought maybe he hadn’t heard him. Right before Jack closed the door between them, Dark answered his question. “Silver. Silver hurts me.” The words sounded equal parts soft and… off-kilter, like he was astonished Jack actually wanted to help him.

“Hmm. I’ve got a tooth you should avoid, then,” Jack said, smiling despite himself.

As Jack turned on the water for his shower, he could’ve sworn he heard Dark chuckle. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

 

 

~***~

 

           

Turned out that once he was warm from the shower and clad in his favorite pajamas, it was easy for Jack to convince himself to go to bed with Dark.

Get in bed with Dark.

Sleep with Dark…

Wow, no matter how Jack phrased it in his head, the action still sounded like the beginning of one of those “romanic” porn novels you could buy at the airport book store.

They laid together (whoops, there it was again) with little fanfare, Dark on the side of the bed nearest to the door and Jack with his head buried in his pillow to avoid the glow from the nightlight in the bathroom. The blankets on Felix and Marzia’s guest bed were soft and snuggly, providing the perfect amount of warmth to fend off the cold seeping in through the old house’s thin walls. Jack was asleep in minutes, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up with him and quashing his usual insomnia.

His eyes snapped open a while later—a couple of hours, since the sun was visible through the crack in the curtains—and it took Jack a second to fight through the universal disorientation that comes with waking up in a new place. Then he wondered what the hell woke him up, and found he had to look no further than the other side of the bed.

Dark was thrashing around in his sleep, covers thrown off to reveal his bare torso and a slice of black boxer-briefs. His gray-tinged skin was damp with sweat, and he was whimpering under his breath, eyes screwed tightly shut even as more sets of them appeared. Something was happening behind him, too, but Jack couldn’t see what it was since Dark was on his back; whatever it was had enough power to make the thrashing worse, though, and that spurred Jack into action.

“Hey, hey—Dark, you need to wake up,” he said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible (not easy for a McLoughlin). Fear prickled at the back of Jack’s mind, telling him he was witnessing something that was Not Of This World and that he should Get The Fuck Away, but he ignored it. “You’re havin’ a nightmare. Whatever it is, it’s not real.” He reached out to touch Dark’s shoulder. “It’s okay, you’re safe—”

Dark sat upright with a low, injured noise, eyes wide and glowing ruby-red in the pre-dawn light. His hand shot out lightning-fast, gripping Jack’s throat with enough force to make him see spots. Dark panted for breath, staring at Jack’s face in sleep-fogged confusion; when he blinked, four sets of eyes situated below the original did too. “… Anti?”

“Guess again,” Jack wheezed, a smartass even when somebody was killing him. He sucked in a huge gulp of air when Dark let go of his neck, relieved when his vision cleared. “That must’ve been some fuckin’ dream.”

Dark was flabbergasted: “I try to strangle you and that’s your response? Christ.” He waved his hand in the air, and the next thing Jack knew the doppelgänger was pressing an ice-pack against his abused throat. “Here. This should help.”

Despite the pain in his neck, Jack was amazed. “You can summon objects independently? That’s incredible.”

“What’s _really_ incredible is that I didn’t break your fucking neck,” Dark snarled, before retreating to his side of the bed, making himself small for Jack’s benefit. Shadows were visible over his shoulders, moving and twisting in agitation. “Did I hurt you?”

“I think I’ll live,” Jack said, grimacing at the rasp in his voice. Gee, there was _no_ way Felix wouldn’t notice that and think it came from sucking dick. He kept the ice on his throat and shifted closer to Dark, which was enough to startle the doppelgänger into meeting his gaze. “Can I see?”

“See what?” Dark’s fingertips touched the skin near his extra eyes and he frowned. His next words were hollow. “I think you’re already getting a show.”

Jack shook his head, tentatively reaching out again, this time to brush Dark’s hair off his forehead. All of Dark’s eyes widened at the tender gesture, and Jack blushed but pressed on, tilting his chin in the direction of the air over Dark’s shoulder. “I meant what you’ve got goin’ on back there.”

Dark shot him a wary look. Still, he turned so Jack could see his back, the twitching shadows solidifying for their audience. Eight spindle-thin legs protruded from the gaps between Dark’s spine and shoulder blades, emerged from tears in his flesh that resembled large-caliber bullet wounds. Each leg was as long as Jack was tall and jointed by knees that looked eerily human. The legs were pitch black and all featured a hard, shiny claw at the ends; despite their elegant appearance, they seemed lethal and strong.

“Does that hurt?” This wasn’t Jack’s first rodeo when it came to magical creatures, but Dark was vastly different from anything he’d seen in the safety of his parents’ home. Curious fingers touched the topmost right of the legs near the bend of its knee, and its skin felt like fine leather. “It looks like it should.”

“It wouldn’t in the Mirror World,” Dark replied, low and quiet. He shuddered but didn’t pull away from Jack’s touch. “Here, it’s… uncomfortable. And once my shell cracks, it’s hard for me to rebuild it.” He exhaled harshly. “I’m going to have to, though, unless you want your friends to be scarred for life.”

“Marzia’s a nymph,” Jack said. “Pretty sure she knew something was up earlier, but she’s too polite to say anything.” He tossed the (melted) icepack on the nightstand. “Is there somethin’ I can do?”

Dark’s hands clenched where they rested on his thighs, like there was something he wanted but didn’t think he should reach for it. “Having something else to focus on helps.”

Jack chewed on his lower lip, thought _fuck it_ , and wrapped tentative arms around Dark’s torso. When Dark didn’t swear or push him away (or spontaneously rip out his jugular with his teeth) Jack scooched closer, until Dark’s back was pressed to Jack’s chest, firmly but not hard enough to crush his spider legs. The doppelgänger shuddered again before sighing, the muscles in his shoulders relaxing enough for Jack to rest his chin on one without feeling like he was digging into a rock with his face.

They were quiet for a moment, until Dark whispered, “Why are you doing this?” He sounded… old, and tired, and genuinely confused.

Potential answers flitted through Jack’s mind: _Because I know what it’s like to need help and have nobody give it to you. Because I want to think I’m a good person. Because I like you even though I shouldn’t._

“I have nightmares too,” Jack said, surprising himself. He studied Dark’s face, and chuckled when half of Dark’s eyes rolled to look in his direction. “I don’t know what yours are about, but mine are… pretty bad.”

Dark brow furrowed. “Bad how?”

“Just… bad,” Jack said, swallowing hard and wincing when it hurt. _You could tell him_ , a little voice in his head whispered, and he wondered for the first time what Anti sounded like. _You could tell him, and Dark could make the bastard wish he was never born_. “Something that happened to me when I was at university. But even though I don’t sprout new eyes or limbs when I have a nightmare, I understand how much they suck.”

As they talked, Jack noticed that the spider legs began to fold themselves up, moving into Dark’s back like someone undressing would pull their arms inside a T-shirt. Jack laced his fingers together just above the cut of Dark’s hip, doing his best to ignore the way the doppelgänger’s bare skin felt against his own, reptilian in its smoothness.

“Any better?” Jack asked, as Dark shut his eyes, the extra ones closing before fading into nothing.

“Yes.” Dark opened his eyes again, twisting at the waist to put them face-to-face. In this position, their noses were almost touching. “Thank you, Jack.”

There were _so_ many reasons this was a bad idea, and most of them tied back to That Man, the one who a small, ugly part of Jack wanted to ask Dark to kill. That Man, who had caused Jack so much suffering, whose face he saw in his nightmares, who had broken Jack’s self-esteem so thoroughly that every date he’d gone on since was an unmitigated disaster and he’d never had the balls to tell Mark how he felt about him.

The hand-shaped bruise on his throat should’ve made Jack pull away, and yet he believed Dark had made an honest mistake as he came out of a nightmare. He _wanted_ to believe that, but then again, Jack had been this naïve once—hadn’t he learned anything?

That last thought was enough to make Jack shove away the attraction burrowed like a hook in his bellybutton, releasing Dark and shuffling back to his side of the bed. “Try to go back to sleep if you want. I think I’m gonna look at my phone for a bit.”

Dark’s ruby-red gaze lost some of its brightness. “Right. Okay.”

He laid down, curling up on his side and facing away from Jack. His breathing evened out surprisingly fast, and Jack watched him for a moment before giving himself a mental head-slap and grabbing his cell phone off the nightstand.

One new text message from Mark: **hey, you awake?**

Relieved to have a distraction—even if it came in the form of his friend/hopeless crush—Jack quickly tapped out a reply: **Yeah dude, what’s up?**

 **Just wondered how you were.** **It feels like we haven’t talked in forever!**

Mark and Jack hadn’t worked together for a few weeks. Jack felt bad, because it seemed like when they weren’t going like gangbusters on the same project they didn’t talk as much. This was why he had, like, three friends. **I know, right?** He wrestled with himself for a moment, then said, **Hey, something pretty weird’s going on. Can I tell you about it?**

After he hit send, however, Jack’s phone screen glitched, pixilating green and black and a whole bunch of other colors. When it normalized, the text Jack sent Mark last was completely different from what he’d actually typed: **I have some pretty big news actually! I moved to Brighton!**

Mark’s response was delayed by a few seconds, but when it came it was in answer to the text Jack hadn’t sent: **Wow, that’s cool – congrats! Seems like a big change. Any particular reason you moved?**

Jack watched with wide eyes as his phone tapped out a reply to Mark’s text all on its own. **Easier to get to London for the big work stuff. You know how it is.**

 **I sure do.** **What’s the new place like?**

“What the _fuck_ is happening?” Jack whispered out loud, while his phone said: **It’s nice. Good internet connection.** As if sensing that Jack was close to giving in and calling Mark to end the madness, his phone glitched again and sent: **I’m actually pretty beat, man. Catch you later?**

 **Sure thing. Have a good sleep** , Mark responded, and then he was gone.

Jack put his phone back on the nightstand and dug his fingers into his grassy hair, the knowledge that he’d look terrible bald the only thing keeping him from ripping fistfuls of it out of his head. Had Dark fucked with his phone somehow? That was the only explanation that made any damn sense. _If that’s the case, you could give him a taste of his own medicine, Jackaboy._

His eyes drifted toward the chair where Dark had dropped his clothes. Jack knew Dark had a cell phone, because the part of his brain that hadn’t been drenched in adrenaline remembered seeing its outline in Dark’s pocket while he sat at the piano in The Headless Pig.

Dark had promised he’d tell him about Anti, and go into detail about why those goons had busted into the pub with smoke grenades and AK-47s; even with the travel time from Athlone to Brighton, he’d done no such thing. Maybe if Jack had proof that Dark was being victimized—and that it was just some weird electronic malfunction that screwed up those messages to Mark—he could let the hook in his belly pull him forward.

Quiet as a church mouse, Jack slipped off the mattress, tiptoeing around the end of the bed to the chair. Dark had taken off his pants last, and they were draped over one arm of the chair to prevent wrinkling. Jack slid his hand into the right front pocket and cheered silently when his fingers closed around the hard, rectangular plastic of a cell phone.

With one last glance back to make sure Dark was still asleep, Jack crept out of the guest bedroom, leaving the door cracked a centimeter to avoid the loud click of the latch hitting the strike plate. He shuffled down the hall on socked feet, sinking into the comforting fluff of one of the couches in the living room and studying the phone. It was the kind you could buy at a petrol station or a convenience store, with just enough features to qualify as “smart”.

Jack pushed the home key and wasn’t surprised when a lock screen greeted him, demanding a PIN number. “What’re the chances it’s six-six-six?” he wondered to himself, huffing a quiet laugh.

Even a cheap phone would only give him so many tries before it locked him. He didn’t know much about Dark, and what he did know didn’t seem like it would be useful in this situation. The PIN was four digits, so Satan’s favorite number was out, and Jack sincerely doubted Dark would be stupid enough to use the same number four times, or 1234.

Jack shut his eyes, tightening his fingers around the phone and trying to get it to do what he wanted, like his mother and sisters did when they heated up soup or got a dead car battery to turn over.

He opened one eye to peek. Nothing.

“Come on,” he murmured. What was it Ma always told him about magic? _You have to picture what you want in your mind, Seán, and make it happen._

Ma always sounded like a bad motivational speaker when she talked about this stuff, but maybe there was some truth to it? This time, Jack closed his eyes and _willed_ the phone to unlock. He pictured an ornate doorknob and its matching key, turning and turning, the pins and bolts and whatever other parts doorknobs had shifting until—

The phone screen got brighter, and when Jack opened his eyes, it was unlocked.

“Well _that’s_ not fucking scary,” he said to no one, and started poking around.

Dark’s phone only had the basic apps installed, and his email and gallery turned up nothing. He had no unread text messages, but when Jack tapped the icon to look at old ones, a conversation between Dark and an unknown number popped up. The message chain was long, spanning back several months, so Jack scrolled to the top and started from the beginning.

What he read was enough to make him want to throw up.

The conversation started out polite but cautious, like two people who once knew one another well talking after a long time apart. About seven messages in, Jack realized the mystery number belonged to his ever-elusive boss, Wilford Warfstache—nobody else Jack knew let themselves be called “Wil” with one “L”, and Dark’s teasing about a pink mustache confirmed it.

Apparently, Dark had inquired if anybody working at Warfstache Games fit a description that matched Jack’s almost exactly (he presumed Dark was describing Anti from memory). Warfstache provided him with all of Jack’s personal information, from his address to his fucking credit score, in return for “a favor to be named later”.

Numbly, Jack tapped his way into a different text thread between Dark and another unknown number. This one was full of coded messages and strings of letters, and it didn’t take much for Jack to figure out that Dark had paid those men in body armor to invade The Headless Pig. The whole “life-or-death” situation had been pre-planned and timed, right down to their awkward conversation with Ol’ John at the bar and the length of the songs Dark played on the Steinway.

Jack heard someone wheezing and it took him a few seconds to realize it was him, gasping for air against the pressure blooming in his chest.

How could he have been so _stupid_? Why the hell had he believed anything that Dark said? He was a demon, for fuck’s sake, a demon that wore the face of Jack’s best friend and put him under his spell by using the thing Jack couldn’t have against him: Mark. This was like That Man all over again, and Jack had sworn to himself (and Felix) after he woke up in the hospital with broken bones and a concussion that he would never again take pretty words at face value.

Jack realized in an out-of-body, floaty kind of way that he’d fallen off the couch and on to the floor, still clutching Dark’s phone and struggling to breathe. The edges of his vision dimmed, mind chasing itself in panicked circles—and then there were feet in front of his face.

Gray feet.

“You f-fucking bastard,” Jack ground out, hearing the anxious stutter in his voice and hating it. His hand squeezed the phone so hard he feared it might break. “Why? Why did you do this?”

Dark knelt on the floor beside him and sighed, pushing a hand through his sleep-mussed hair and tugging when he reached the back. “Jack, I wish there had been another way for me to find you. Wil is an… old friend of mine, and—”

“Not _t-that_ ,” Jack snapped, and clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. Stupid panic attacks and their stupid adrenaline rush. “I get that part. You have a connection to Mark, and you wanted to see if Anti and I had the same thing—plus you needed to know if he’d been trying to influence me.” Forcing his arm to work, Jack turned the phone around so Dark could see the screen. “Why did you pay those guys to fuck up The Headless Pig?”

When Dark read the messages he swore profusely, his borders wavering and going three-dimensional. His expression—or what Jack could see of it, with all the distortion—looked genuinely shocked. “I didn’t pay them to do anything. I thought they were after me because of something I stole from a museum in Romania.” Gently, he pried the phone from Jack’s stiff fingers and studied the screen. “Anti must’ve done this. He can connect to anything electronic and tamper with it, but the spell I used to seal him in that apartment was supposed to render him incorporeal until…” Dark’s eyes widened fractionally. “Until my return. Unless it wasn’t _me_ that came into the apartment.”

“Mark,” Jack whispered, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling. His heartbeat was finally returning to normal, and he could breath again. “Mark’s with Anti, isn’t he?”

“He has to be,” Dark said. He rubbed at his stubble-covered jaw, agitated. “Son of a _bitch_.”

“Just because I get why you did what you did doesn’t mean I’m okay with it.” Jack used the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat from his brow. “That was not only a complete invasion of my privacy, it was _really_ creepy.”

Was it Jack’s imagination, or had Dark’s gaze strayed to his abdomen when he lifted his shirt? Nah, had to be Jack’s mind playing tricks on him… even if the doppelgänger’s cheeks flushed a fetching shade of plum.

“I’m sorry,” Dark said, and wow, that was one of the items on Jack’s Top Ten List of Things He Never Expected Dark to Say. “I need help to break the _dúbailte_ curse, and not only are you Anti’s double, but you’re from a magical bloodline. I had to find you, and Warfstache turned out to be the most expedient way.”

Jack frowned, a funny feeling nagging at the back of his brain. “Did you fuck with my phone?”

Dark frowned too, puzzled. “No. What’s wrong with it?”

Slowly, Jack picked himself up off the floor, waving Dark away when he tried to help. Dragging one hand along the wall for steadiness, Jack made his way back to the guest bedroom and retrieved his cell phone. He retraced his shuffling steps and slapped the device into Dark’s open palm so he could examine it.

The look on Dark’s face as he read over Jack’s altered conversation with Mark said everything Jack needed to know: Anti was behind that, too.

“Why’s he doing this?” Jack wondered. It felt completely natural when Dark stepped into his personal space to hand back his phone—and _oh_ , there was that hook in Jack’s belly again, prying at him as soon as Dark was close enough. “Is it just to mess with you?”

“I’m not sure,” Dark admitted, sounding less like he’d revealed a lack of knowledge and more like he’d spilled a terrible secret. Hesitant for the first time since Jack met him, Dark reached out, fingers brushing the back of Jack’s hand. “Are you okay?”

 _Yes. No. I don’t know._ Jack swallowed hard and turned his hand at the wrist, allowing Dark to trace the lines on his palm. His other hand tossed his phone to the relative safety of the couch—he wasn’t sure why. “I think so. My anxiety hasn’t flared that bad in a long time.”

Dark made a noise of acknowledgement, linking his fingers through Jack’s like pieces of a puzzle. “Are you anxious now?”

“I should be,” Jack said, never one for bullshit when it counted. His eyes flicked to Dark’s mouth, and he felt himself sway forward. “You could be… thralling me, or some shit. Makin’ me feel this way.”

“I’m not.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You have good instincts,” Dark said, and that was enough to make Jack want to laugh and cry at the same time. “And I told you earlier, psychic manipulation is not my preferred method of getting a date.”

“Oh yeah?” Jack murmured. They were nose-to-nose again, like back on the bed, except Dark was squeezing his hand. The doppelgänger’s free hand came to rest against Jack’s hip, fingertips dipping under the waistband of his pajamas. On some level Jack knew he should be terrified, but the crimson glow from Dark’s eyes was strangely comforting. “What’s your preferred method, then?”

If anyone else did it, Jack probably would’ve been amused that Dark chose to kiss him in answer to his question. Because it was Dark, Jack groaned, the metaphorical hook in his belly threatening to rip him open as he returned the kiss, bringing his hands up to tangle in the soft strands of Dark’s hair. Dark’s other hand moved to clutch at Jack’s waist when Jack nibbled at his lower lip, their tongues meeting briefly before Jack busied himself with probing at the fangs beginning to emerge from Dark’s gums. A sharp point pricked Jack’s tongue and it began to buzz pleasantly thanks to some kind of toxin.

Wondering how that tingling would feel in other parts of his body was enough to make Jack whimper, and Dark was lifting him like he’d hefted the luggage, as if Jack weighed nothing. He walked them blindly to the nearest wall, pressing Jack’s back against the plaster as they continued to kiss, Dark surprising Jack with passion that somehow never verged into the roughness he’d expected.

Jack clenched his abs—he _did_ have them, although not as well-defined as Dark’s—legs coming up to wrap around Dark’s waist, ankles crossed at the small of his back. His hands moved down from Dark’s hair to hold his face, thumbs smoothing across sharp cheekbones, Jack only startling a little when he felt extra eyelids forming under his touch. Rocking his hips, Jack discovered that wasn’t the only thing forming because of him; Dark was hard, and grunted at the friction through the thin layers of his boxer-briefs and Jack’s pajama pants.

Dark shuddered and broke away, mouth dragging along Jack’s jaw, nipping lightly and leaving little patches of fireworks in his wake. His hands curved over Jack’s ribcage, and the idea that he could break them all with a hard squeeze was far less frightening than it should’ve been. Jack knew Dark was capable of violence—the way he’d handled the Beretta and the scars on his knuckles were indicators—but the way he pressed gentle, apologetic kisses against the bruise on Jack’s throat suggested that maybe it wasn’t _all_ he was capable of doing.

Jack blinked, and the spider legs were pushing out of the muscles in Dark’s back. The lowest ones from either side hooked under Jack’s thighs to help support him, leathery skin catching against the hair there and making goosebumps in their wake. The other six snuggled in tight around Jack’s shoulders, forming a protective barrier between him and the wall. It was… sweet, in a very strange way, and it made Jack grab Dark’s jaw so he could reconnect their lips.

“Jack,” Dark mumbled as they kissed, chaste little pecks that allowed Jack to get his breath back. “Do you… this doesn’t bother you?”

Jack opened his eyes to find five sets of red ones staring back at him. His heart rattled double-time in his chest, jaded but willing to feel affection for the right person. He squeezed Dark’s sides with his thighs, leaning into the spider legs and making a pleased noise when they held him as securely as Dark’s arms. “Why would it?”

“Shit.” Dark sounded like Jack had punched him in the gut. He cupped Jack’s face in his hands and kissed him again, slow and incredibly tender. “May I please take you to bed?”

“God, yes,” Jack said, and was pleased when he realized that the butterflies he felt in his stomach were anticipation, not dread. _Fuck you, That Man._ He let out an indignant squeak when Dark’s spider legs pulled him away from the wall, his actual arms wrapped firmly around Jack’s back as he walked toward the guest bedroom. “Can you even see around me?”

Dark snorted. “Fuck no.”

“So we could run smack into a wall?”

“I was thinking if we ran into anything, I’d make sure it was Felix’s liquor cabinet.”

Jack threw back his head and laughed. “You’re such a prick.”

Dark laughed too, the noise bouncing around like bass from surround-sound speakers. “I never claimed to be anything else.”

 

 

~***~

 

 

They tumbled into the unmade bed, Dark sitting up against the headboard and Jack straddling his lap, the spider legs functioning as a living backrest. Jack ground down experimentally and let out a breathy little moan at the size and shape of the hardness under his ass, the friction against his cock and balls just enough to drive him crazy. Dark was leaving a much more pleasurable kind of bruise against the side of Jack’s neck, and his fingers slipped up under the hem of Jack’s T-shirt in a silent question.

Jack yanked the shirt over his head and tossed it aside with no preamble, shivering when the spider legs immediately skittered all over his back, limbs learning newly exposed snow-white skin. He felt none of his usual self-consciousness over his lack of muscle definition or the feminine curve of his waist, and his anxiety from earlier was a distant memory. The addictive tingling from Dark’s bites and the warm glow of preternaturally red eyes was enough to ground Jack to this moment, and he was completely at ease.

Those eyes—all of them—drank Jack in, Dark’s hand rising to cup Jack’s jaw. “Beautiful.”

Jack kissed the inside of Dark’s wrist, and said, feeling bold, “I want you to fuck me.”

Dark froze, and for a split second Jack thought he’d done something wrong. Then he surged forward, his kiss electric like a thunderbolt when it hit Jack’s mouth, the stench of ozone and sex rolling off of him in waves. The doppelgänger let the spider legs hold Jack up while he shucked off his boxer-briefs; he helped Jack push his pajamas down his legs a moment later, flinging them in the direction of the bathroom.

Jack groaned, heat and skin-on-skin and delicious friction practically liquefying his brain… until he felt something wrap around his dick, and it definitely wasn’t a hand. Eyes still shut from all the kissing, he inquired, “Um, Dark?”

Dark’s smirk was audible. “Yes, darling?”

“What’s…” Jack opened his eyes and blinked a few times, peering down at his lap. “That’s wiggly.”

Dark’s dick was… well, _wiggly_ was a pretty apt description. Not like full-on Japanese tentacle porn (that was a regrettable click on Jack’s part and it happened _once_ ), but it was sizable and flushed the same dark purple as Dark’s cheeks. While it looked mostly like your average uncircumcised human dick, there were a couple of curious distinctions: the entire length was covered with peculiar-looking ridges—almost like a ribbed condom—and it was bendy. Like, _giving-Jack’s-dick-a-hug-all-on-its-own_ bendy.

“Shit,” Jack said, and he felt Dark tense. He grinned cheekily at the doppelgänger, continuing, “Y’think Felix keeps lube in the guest room?”

“You ass,” Dark groused, the relief at Jack’s lack of a negative reaction clear in his face. He snapped his fingers, and they suddenly sported a slick sheen. He raised a haughty eyebrow at Jack’s shocked expression. “I can summon objects independently, remember?”

“Touché,” Jack said, yelping when cold fingers slipped between his ass cheeks. “Jesus! You couldn’t have warmed it up first?”

“I could have,” Dark admitted, busily attacking the other side of Jack’s neck with a combination of fangs and blunt human teeth. “But I didn’t.”

He eased a finger into Jack, and suddenly Jack didn’t give a flying monkey shit about whether the lube was cold. A shaky moan escaped his lips as he adjusted to the feeling, the sudden burn of a second finger joining the first dulled by Dark’s venom. Dark had moved to nip the shit out of Jack’s collarbones, biting his way to the end of one shoulder before lifting his head to mash their mouths together, his whole body vibrating under Jack’s restless hands.

When Dark added a third finger and bumped his prostate, Jack was mewling his desperation, rocking his hips in search of more friction. Leaning up on his knees, he had to suppress a giggle when Dark tried and failed to untangle their cocks, Dark’s genitals refusing to let go of Jack’s. “I think it likes me.”

“That would make two of us.” Dark’s tone was wry, but Jack could hear something else in the words, too—y’know, besides constant ethereal ringing. It almost sounded… fond?

Then Jack was sinking on to Dark’s cock, and for a moment he didn’t hear anything, his body shutting off all his senses in order to enjoy the hot pressure building in his gut. By the time Dark was fully seated inside of him, Jack was panting and sure when he swallowed he was going to taste dick in the back of his throat. He was so _full_ , and the ridges ringing Dark’s cock rubbed his inner walls in all the right places.

Dark was gritting his teeth, five sets of eyes staring somewhere up and to Jack’s left. His hands were clamped on Jack’s hips like vices, the spider legs just as tense. “Are you okay?” he asked, the words less a question and more a growl.

“M’good,” Jack mumbled, lips and tongue pleasantly numb from a combination of kissing and venom.

He lifted himself up a little and dropped back down, slapping a hand over his own mouth to hold back a wail; some small part of Jack’s brain was aware that Felix and Marzia were sleeping somewhere above them. He did his best to ride Dark for the next few minutes, shifting and squeezing and giving himself a mental pat on the back when Dark’s eyes snapped open and he thrusted up to meet the downward cant of Jack’s body.

“As— _uh_ —nice as this is,” Jack said, molars clacking together from strength behind the slam of Dark’s hips, “m’probably not gonna last much longer. It’s been a while.”

Dark rolled them over so smoothly that Jack didn’t realize it happened until Dark was on top of him, spider legs fanned like demonic wings. He grabbed Jack’s hands, interlocking their fingers and pressing them into the pillow on either side of Jack’s head as he set a smooth but punishing pace, punching Jack’s prostate every chance he got. Jack moaned, leaning up to kiss Dark in a failed attempt to muffle the sound. It didn’t matter, anyway, since the headboard was banging into the wall with every combined thrust of their hips; unless Marzia and Felix were deaf, they knew _exactly_ what was happening in their guest bed by now.

One more fanged bite over his jugular and Jack was coming untouched all over his stomach, vision wavering at the edges as every nerve ending in his body sang. His arm flopped around uselessly before allowing him to grasp Dark’s chin, bringing him down for another searing kiss as the doppelgänger gave one final, hard thrust before spilling inside Jack.

Jack shivered at the sensation of hot liquid filling him up, and wrapped a leg around the back of Dark’s knees when he moved to pull out. “Where d’you think you’re goin’?”

Dark stilled. He let go of one of Jack’s hands in favor of carding his fingers through Jack’s sweaty hair. “Nowhere, darling.” He brushed a soft kiss against Jack’s cheek, and it felt like a threat and a promise and the future all rolled into one. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! My blog is samnanther.tumblr.com if anybody wants to chat! :)

**Author's Note:**

> *Irish for Red Man. A solitary fairy along with the leprechaun and the _clurichaun_ , all of whom are "most sluttish, slouching, jeering, mischievous phantoms". The _far darrig_ in particular is described as one who "busies himself with practical joking, especially with gruesome joking".
> 
> **A male fairy in Irish mythology that is known for seducing human women.


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